Mailing lists

The mailing lists are the traditional communication channel of the OpenStreetMap project, and nowadays coexist with other platforms such as the community forum. An attempt to collect the information about local communication channels is done at the osm-community-index (browse as a website).

The canonical list of mailing lists available is at lists.openstreetmap.org/listinfo.

Please note that even if the lists are moderated, you have to become a member of the mailing list to send an email to that list!

Lists provided by OSMF or a local chapter

The OpenStreetMap mailing lists by OSMF live on lists.openstreetmap.org/. The French and the German local chapters provide lists at lists.openstreetmap.fr and lists.openstreetmap.de. The following list excludes unused lists.

Topic lists in English

Info	Description	Code of Conduct	Admins	Additional moderators	Archive	Mirrors
accessibility	For discussion about accessibility: OSM for disabled users and mappers (Blind, wheelchair, deaf etc.).		Lulu-Ann	Bahnpirat	archive	Gmane
announce	a low-volume moderated announcement list (mostly about technical downtimes)		Mike Collinson Jonathan Bennett		archive	Gmane
dev	For developer discussion.		Mikel Maron Mike Collinson Andy Robinson	Ian Dees	archive	Gmane
diversity-talk	For discussion of diversity initiatives in OpenStreetMap	Yes	Amanda McCann	(+1 other)	archive	Gmane
geocoding	For discussion of geocoding.		Tom Hughes		archive	Gmane
historic	Historic mapping (time dimension, historical data not allowed on OSM)	Yes	Jeff Meyer		archive	Gmane
HOT	For Humanitarian OSM Team discussion and response.	Yes	Mikel Maron		archive	Gmane
HOT-announce	Important HOT announcements and updates only. Very low volume.				archive
imports	For discussion of data imports.		Ian Dees		archive	Gmane
imports-us	For discussion of data imports impacting the United States.	Yes	Ian Dees		archive	Gmane
learnosm-coord	Coordination group for LearnOSM.org				archive
legal-general	General discussions about alternative OSM licensing scenarios.		Mike Collinson Frederik Ramm		archive	Gmane
legal-talk	For discussion of specific legal issues relating to the current and proposed license including use of OSM data and compatibility of other data sources.		Richard Fairhurst		archive	Gmane
local-chapters	General discusion of topics relevant for (local) chapters of the OSM Foundation		Simon Poole		archive	Gmane
machine-learning	Conversations around machine learning and OpenStreetMap.		Felix Delattre		archive
openhiking	Mailing list to discuss tagging and rendering hiking trails using the OpenStreetMap Database				archive
osm-professional	OSM Professional. A general discussion forum for professional (commercial, government, non-profit , NGO, ...) users of OpenStreetMap geodata.		Kate Chapman		archive
osmf-announce	OpenStreetMap Foundation member announcements (low volume), Foundation members only.		Mike Collinson		archive
osmf-talk	Talk about the OpenStreetMap Foundation, closed list for Foundation members. Archives are public.		Mike Collinson Frederik Ramm Simone Cortesi	Only the following are moderators: Allan Mustard Logan McGovern Radmila Jovanovic Rubaina Adam Teyvi Angela Page for moderators	archive
outdoor-natural	Outdoor sports, wilderness and natural features mapping. Everything from scuba diving to paragliding, from undersea volcanoes to Mount Everest, related software and talk. All languages welcome.		User:RicoZ		archive
party	For discussion and organisation of mapping parties.		Richard Fairhurst		archive
photos	For discussion and organisation of the use of photos in mapping.		John McKerrell		archive	Gmane
rails-dev	Discussion of rails port (web site) development		Tom Hughes		archive
routing	For discussion about routing with vector data.		Jörg Ostertag		archive	Gmane
science	Discuss anything science related in the OpenStreetMap ecosystem		Joost Schouppe		archive
sotm-asia	Planning for SotM Asia				archive
strategic	Fundraising, planning and strategy for OSMF		Mikel Maron	Richard Weait	archive
tagging	For tag discussion, strategy and related tools. - High traffic! It may be a good idea to register with a secondary email account.		Richard Fairhurst		archive	Gmane
talk	For general OpenStreetMap user discussion.		Mikel Maron Mike Collinson Andy Robinson	Only the following are moderators: Allan Mustard Logan McGovern Radmila Jovanovic Rubaina Adam Teyvi Angela Page for moderators	archive	Gmane
talk-transit	For discussion about public transport.		Peter Miller Frankie Roberto Stefan Bethke		archive	Gmane
teachOSM	teachOSM project discussion	Yes	Steven Johnson		archive
tile-serving	For discussion about OSM tile serving infrastructure.				archive

Software-specific lists in English

Info	Description	Admins	Archive	Mirrors
josm-dev	For JOSM developer discussion.	Frederik Ramm	archive	Gmane
lorodux-dev	LoroDux developers	Lulu-Ann Daniel Haenssgen	archive
mapcss	For MapCSS implementers and stylesheet authors.	Richard Fairhurst	archive
maproulette	MapRoulette general discussion and development		archive
merkaartor	For Merkaartor OpenStreetMap editor for Unix/Windows/Mac discussion.	Christian Browet	archive	Gmane
osm2world	Discussion about OSM2World, the 3D renderer	Tobias Knerr	archive
osm4j	Discussion about osm4j, a lightweight Java programming framework for working with OSM data		archive
osmcha-dev	Discussion of OSMCha development and APIs (higher level talks, announcements of downtime and releases, etc)		archive
osmosis-dev	For Osmosis developer discussion.	Brett Henderson	archive	Gmane
osrm-talk	Mailing list to discuss Project OSRM		archive
Overpass dev	Overpass API development / system administration list	User:Sletuffe	archive	Gmane
photon	Photon Geocoder		archive
potlatch-dev	For Potlatch developer discussion.	Richard Fairhurst	archive
taginfo-dev	For developers of Taginfo, users of the Taginfo API and people running their own Taginfo instance.	Jochen Topf	archive
umap	Discussions about uMap project		archive

Topic lists in a local language

Info	Description	Admins	Additional moderators	Archive	Mirrors
dev-fr	Technical topics in French			archive	Gmane
dev-italia	Developer discussion in Italian			archive
HOT-francophone	For Humanitarian OSM Team discussion and response (discussion in French).	sev_osm FofB	augustind	archive
tagging-fr	For tag discussion, strategy and related tools (discussion in French).	sev_osm		archive
transport	French public transport discussion			archive

Country-specific lists

Info	Description	Code of Conduct	Admins	Archive	Mirrors
talk-af	Afghanistan specific topics and discussion		Kate Chapman	archive
talk-africa	African topics		Mikel Maron	archive
talk-al	OpenStreetMap mailing list of the Albanian speaking community			archive
talk-ar	Argentina specific topics and discussion		Guillermo Sansovic	archive
talk-asia	OpenStreetMap across Asia			archive
talk-at	Austria specific topics and discussion (Usually in German but English is welcome)		Norbert Wenzel Andreas Labres	archive	Gmane
talk-au	Australia specific topics and discussion		Richard Weait	archive	Gmane
talk-ba	Bosnia and Herzegovina specific topics and discussion			archive
talk-baltics	Discussion on topics for three small baltic states - Estonia, Latvia, Lithuania			archive
talk-bd	Bangladesh specific topics and discussion		Larry O'Neill Syed Ishtiaque Ahmed TasaufA BakiBillah Ribin	archive
talk-be	Belgium specific topics and discussion. English used as compromise between French and Dutch. But everyone can use their own language, especially for regional topics.		Johan Huysmans Mark Van den Borre	archive	Gmane
talk-bf	Burkina Faso specific topics and discussion		Helge Fahrnberger	archive
talk-bi	Burundi specific topics and discussion			archive
talk-bj	Benin specific topics and discussion		Benedikt saliousoft	archive
talk-blr	Belarus specific topics and discussion			archive
talk-bo	Bolivia specific topics and discussion		Alex Infantes Marco Antonio Frias	archive
talk-br	Brazil specific topics and discussion (Brazilian Portuguese)		Vitor George	archive	Gmane
talk-ca	Canada specific topics and discussion		Richard Weait	archive	Gmane
talk-carib	Caribbean-related content			archive
talk-cat	Catalan mailing list			archive
talk-cd	Democratic Republic of the Congo, mostly in French - Discussions sur OSM en RDC			archive
talk-cf	Liste de discussion sur OpenStreetMap en République Centrafricaine			archive
talk-ci	Côte d'Ivoire specific topics and discussion			archive
talk-cl	Chile specific topics and discussion		Julio Costa	archive
talk-cm	Cameroon specific topics and discussion			archive
talk-cn	China specific topics and discussion		Sun Ning	archive
talk-co	Colombia specific topics and discussion		Fredy Rivera (humano on osm, edits, contrib, heatmap, chngset com.) Andres Gomez (AngocA on osm, edits, contrib, heatmap, chngset com.)	archive
talk-cr	Costa Rica-specific topics and discussion		Ben Konrath Jorge R	archive
talk-cu	Cuba specific topics and discussion		Elpbatista Mike Collinson	archive
talk-cz	Czech discussion		Dan Barta Tom.k	archive	Gmane
talk-de	German discussion		Frederik Ramm	archive	Gmane
Germany Regional lists	Due to the high traffic on talk-de, separate lists for regions in Germany are available on lists.openstreetmap.de. Infos on requesting regional lists: Deutsche Mailinglisten
talk-dk	Danish discussion			archive	Gmane
talk-do	Dominica specific topics and discussion			archive
talk-ee	Estonia-specific topics and discussion			archive
talk-es	Spain discussion		Francisco Santos Iván Sánchez Ortega	archive	Gmane
talk-et	Ethiopia-specific topics and discussion			archive
talk-fi	Finland-specific topics and discussion			archive
talk-fr	French speaking discussion			archive	Gmane
openstreetmap.fr lists	Mailing lists hosted by openstreetmap.fr: association, conseil-administration, contact, ga (Groupe d'Accompagnement), opentraffic, pro-fr, roborthos (aerial imagery), tech, transport, many local-* lists, others
talk-fr-bzh	Mapping, mapping parties and localisation in the Bretagne / Breizh / Brittany region of France.			archive
talk-gb	UK-specific topics, such as UK mapping parties and meetups		Matthew Newton	archive	Gmane
talk-gb-london	Mapping in the UK London area		Mike Collinson	archive	Gmane
talk-gb-midanglia	Mapping in the UK area loosely based around Cambridge		David Earl	archive
talk-gb-oxoncotswolds	Mapping and development in the UK area of ["Oxfordshire"], the Cotswolds and nearby.		Richard Fairhurst	archive
talk-gb-thenorth	Mapping in the North of England, UK		Simon Ward Tim Waters	archive
talk-gb-westmidlands	Mapping in the UK West Midlands (Birmingham) area		Andy Robinson	archive	Gmane
talk-ge	Georgia, Abkhazia, and South Ossetia specific topics and discussion			archive
talk-gh	Ghana specific topics and discussion			archive
talk-gr	Greece specific topics and discussion			archive
talk-hn	Honduras specific topics and discussion			archive
talk-hr	Croatia-specific topics, discussion			archive	Gmane
talk-ht	Haiti-specific topics, in English and French		Jaakko Helleranta	archive	Gmane
talk-hu	Hungary-specific topics, discussion			archive
talk-id	Indonesia-specific topics, in Bahasa Indonesian			archive
talk-ie	Ireland-specific topics, such as Irish mapping parties and meetups		Gareth Eason	archive	Gmane
talk-il	Israel discussion - preferred language: Hebrew. This is being phased out in favour of Israel-Forum			archive
talk-in	India-specific topics, such as Indian mapping parties and meetups			archive
talk-iq	Iraq specific topics and discussion			archive
talk-ir	Iran-specific topics and discussion.			archive
talk-is	Iceland-specific topics, such as the OSM data in Iceland and Icelandic mapping parties. Discussions in Icelandic or English			archive	Gmane
talk-it	Italian discussion - but english is welcome		Simone Cortesi	archive	Gmane
talk-it-appulo-lucana	Italian regional talk list for Basilicata and Puglia - Lista regionale della Basilicata e della Puglia			archive
talk-it-bici	Italian bicycle discussion - but english is welcome		Luca Delucchi	archive
talk-it-cai	Italian Alpine Club - Discussioni riguardanti la convenzione con il CAI			archive
talk-it-fvg	Italian region Friuli Venezia Giulia discussion - but english is welcome			archive
talk-it-lazio	Italian region Lazio discussion - but english is welcome		Martin Koppenhöfer	archive	Gmane
talk-it-liguria	Italian region Liguria discussion - but english is welcome		Luca Delucchi	archive
talk-it-lombardia	Italian region Lombardia discussion - but english is welcome		Lorenzo Stucchi	archive
talk-it-marche	Italian region Marche discussion - but english is welcome		Lorenzo Mastrogiacomi	archive
talk-it-piemonte	Italian region Piemonte discussion - but english is welcome			archive
talk-it-sardinia	Italian region Sardegna discussion - but english is welcome			archive
talk-it-sicilia	Italian region Sicilia discussion - but english is welcome			archive	Gmane
talk-it-southtyrol	Italian regional South Tyrol discussion - Lista regionale dell' Alto Adige - Regionale Mailingliste für Südtirol - (Italian, German and English welcome)		Martin Raifer	archive	Gmane
talk-it-trentino	Italian region Trentino discussion - but english is welcome		Luca Delucchi	archive	Gmane
talk-it-veneto	Italian region Veneto discussion - but english is welcome			archive
talk-ja	Japanese discussion.			archive
talk-ke	Kenya specific topics and discussion.		Daniel Westergren Mikel Maron	archive
talk-kg	Kyrgyzstan discussion.			archive
talk-ko	Korean discussion. Korean and English language.			archive	Gmane
talk-kosovo	Kosovo specific topics and discussion. Discussion in English and Albanian.			archive
talk-latam	Latin America - Postings in Spanish, Portuguese and Englisch are welcome.			archive
talk-lb	Lebanon specific topics and discussion. Discussion in Arabic, English, French.			archive
talk-lk	SriLanka specific topics and discussions.		Vivien Deparday	archive
talk-lt	Lithuania specific topics and discussion.			archive	Gmane
talk-lu	Luxembourg specific topics and discussion. Discussion usually in English, but French, German or Luxembourgish are ok too.			archive
talk-lv	Latvia specific topics and discussion			archive
talk-ly	Libya specific topics and discussion			archive
talk-ma	Morocco specific topics and discussion			archive
talk-mg	Madagascar specific topics and discussion.			archive
talk-ml	Mali specific topics and discussion			archive
talk-mm	Myanmar specific topics and discussion.			archive
talk-mn	Mongolia specific topics and discussion.			archive
talk-mw	Malawi specific topics and discussion			archive
talk-mx	Mexico specific topics and discussion.			archive
talk-my	Malaysia specific topics and discussion			archive
talk-nc	New Caledonia specific topics and discussion			archive
talk-ne	Niger specific topics and discussion. Discussion usually in French, but English is welcome.		Orsolya Jenei	archive
talk-ng	Nigeria specific topics and discussion		Rafael Ávila Coya	archive
talk-ni	Nicaragua specific topics and discussion		Felix Delattre	archive
talk-nl	Dutch discussion		Henk Hoff Martijn van Exel	archive	Gmane
talk-np	Nepal specific topics and discussion		PrabhasP	archive
talk-nz	New Zealand specific topics and discussion (openstreetmap.org host email list. Jan 2018 - )		Eliot Blennerhassett	archive
talk-pacific	Regional list for and by the peoples of the Moana/Oceania/Pacific			archive
talk-pe	Peru specific topics and discussion		Omar Vega	archive
talk-ph	Philippines specific topics and discussion,			archive	Gmane
~~talk-pl~~	~~Poland specific topics and discussion~~ Inactive, osm forum is primary location for discussion in OSM community in Poland		Zbigniew Czernik	archive
talk-pr	Puerto Rico specific topics and discussion.		Víctor Ramírez Agustín Graterole	archive
talk-ps	Palestine specific topics and discussion.			archive
talk-pt	Portuguese specific topics and discussion.		ViriatoLusitano	archive
talk-py	Paraguay specific topics and discussion			archive
talk-ro	Romania specific topics and discussion.			archive
talk-rs	Serbia specific topics and discussion.			archive
talk-ru	Russia specific topics and discussion. Inactive from March 2015. See other contact channels.			archive	Gmane
talk-sc	Seychelles specific topics and discussion			archive
talk-scotland	Scotland specific topics and discussion			archive
talk-se	Swedish discussion (Feel free to discuss Swedish issues in English though).			archive	Gmane
talk-si	Slovenian discussion			archive
talk-sn	Senegal specific topics and discussion			archive
talk-sy	Syria specific topics and discussion. Discussion in Arabic, English and French		Crataegus	archive
talk-td	Chad specific topics and discussion			archive
talk-tg	Togo specific topics and discussion			archive
talk-tn	Tunisia specific topics and discussion		Chedli Ghedira	archive
talk-tr	Turkish discussion			archive	Gmane
talk-tw	Taiwan specific topics and discussion in Chinese.			archive	Gmane
talk-tz	Tanzania specific topics and discussion			archive
talk-ug	Uganda sample topics and discussion.		Douglas Ssebaggala	archive
talk-us	USA-specific topics, such as US mapping parties and meetups; see also imports-us in Topic Lists table	Yes	Ian Dees Dave Hansen	archive	Gmane
talk-us-massachusetts	Topics specific to Massachusetts	Yes	Alan Bragg	archive
talk-us-newyork	New York-specific topics	Yes	Richard Welty	archive
talk-us-nps	USA national parks related content	Yes	Clifford Snow	archive
talk-us-pugetsound	Topics specific to the Puget Sound region, Washington State		Chase Stephens	archive
talk-us-sfbay	USA local list for the San Francisco Bay Area and Northern California in general	Yes	Minh Nguyen	archive	Gmane
talk-uy	Uruguay specific topics and discussion in Spanish			archive
talk-ve	Venezuela specific topics and discussion			archive
talk-vi	Vietnam specific topics and discussion			archive	Gmane
talk-za	South Africa specific topics and discussion		Grant Slater	archive	Gmane
talk-zm	Zambia specific topics and discussion			archive

Archived mailing lists

Mailing lists that were removed but archives continue to be available.

Info	Description	Admins	Archive	Mirrors
design	This was a place to discuss design related issue in OpenStreetMap. The topics include things such as user interface, user experience and general aesthetics.	Kate Chapman	archive	Gmane
moderation	The Moderation mailing list was used to discuss how to respond to Vandalism and mistakes.		archive	Gmane
newbies	This list was intended for questions by new users. This role has been taken over by the forum [1].	Richard Fairhurst	archive
OSMF-membership	OSMF membership services working group
rebuild	Temporary forum for technical discussion of process, tools and functionality for rebuilding the OSM database ready for ODbL change-over	Mike Collinson	archive
voting	This list was originally used for electronic voting for board members. It has now been superseded by other methods and will probably be deleted.
welcomewg	Working group discussions: Why do we have such a hard time retaining mappers after they sign up, and do something about it.		archive

Lists provided by external services

Info	Description	Admins	Additional moderators	Archive	Mirrors
abul	French speaking discussion around Bordeaux and Aquitaine.			archive
kart	Norwegian discussion. Norway. Contains archive of community discussion, but is not active. Use community.openstreetmap.org			archive
openstreetmap-hr	Croatian discussion			archive
maps-l	Discussion and development coordinating the integration of OpenStreetMap and other free map sources into Wikimedia projects.			archive
mkgmap-dev	General development list for mkgmap.			archive	Gmane
nantes	French speaking discussion around Nantes.			archive
nzopengis	New Zealand specific topics and discussion (Google group)			nzopengis archive
openrailwaymap	Discussions of users and developers of OpenRailwayMap, but also other railway-related stuff.		Rurseekatze (on osm, edits, contrib, heatmap, chngset com.), Nakaner (on osm, edits, contrib, heatmap, chngset com.)	archive	Gmane
openseamap-develop	OpenSeaMap developer discusssion.			archive
openseamap-maps	Everything about using and creating maps for OpenSeaMap.			archive
talk-ch	Switzerland specific topics and discussion	Jiuka		archive	Gmane
talk-md	Moldova specific topics and discussion. This is a Google group.
talk-sk	Slovak discussion (google group)			archive	Gmane

Other mirrored mailing lists

Other mailing lists mirrored on Gmane NNTP:

Requests for new lists

If you want a new list for your country or language, send an email to Michael Collinson, list-requests at openstreetmap dot org.

Non-ASCII language digest support

OSM lists operate using Mailman. Some lists that use non-ASCII character sets may not display digests correctly. If you are the list administrator a suggested solution is to log in to the admin panel, go to "Digest options" and change the digest format to MIME. You may also need to un-set the 'Plain' setting for existing users in the membership list.

Reading mailing lists via newsgroup interface

You can read and participate in the mailing list using a NNTP-compatible newsgroup client. The advantage is that the software shows discussion in a thread-like view. This simplifies following multiple discussions in high volume mailing lists.

Thunderbird has built-in newsgroup-support. To add Gmane.io, a newsgroup server which is syndicating the OSM mailing lists, you need to do the following:

Select Tools -> Accounts...
Press the 'Add account'-button
For the account type select Newsgroup-account
Enter the name that should appear when sending mails to the list in the name field and your email adress in the second one.
The nntp server address is news.gmane.io
Enter a descriptive account name for Thunderbird and hit 'Finish'
Now right-click on the new branch in your Thunderbird folder overview and select 'Subscribe...'
Enter openstreetmap in the filter field and subscribe to the (regional) osm mailing list(s) of your liking.

Search the mailing lists

A few lists have their own search site: check the 'archive' column in the tables above. If a list doesn't have a search site, you can use Google search or The Mail Archive. It is also possible to download mailing list archives for offline search using scripts^[1].

Download the archives

You can download the archive of a mailing list in Mbox format (compatible with Thunderbird) after registering to it by using the following link and replacing the parameters: https://lists.openstreetmap.org/mailman/private/LISTNAME.mbox/LISTNAME.mbox
For the Tagging list, for example, replace each LISTNAME by "tagging" (without quotes).
You will then be presented with a form asking your email address and password (the password you chose or that was sent to you when registering to that list).
Optionally, you can set these by adding ?username=YOUREMAILADRESS&password=YOURPASSWORD at the end of the url (replace YOUREMAILADRESS by your email address and YOURPASSWORD by your password).

↑ See bash scripts for offline mailing list downloads

Contents